Since the last update both the TELs and Trekkers have mainly been working at the Ya'axche Conservation Trust in southern Belize - line clearing, patrolling with the rangers and building bunk beds. The TELs have now survived an entire month in the jungle relatively unscathed - but not without some near misses. Guy has had a few close encounters with the native wildlife, firstly a massive tarantula on his shoulder and then he was lucky enough to see a jaguar up close while line clearing (which more people may have seen had he not shouted "Jaguar, JAGUAR!!").Meanwhile, Jade, Kent and Colin went to play at being park rangers with the Trekkers from Strathclyde and joined a patrol in Bladen Nature Reserve - an amazing opportunity as it is not
open to the public. On route we encountered some funky monkeys who made it quite clear whose territory it was by throwing progressively bigger branches at us until we ran away, like the big brave rangers we are.
Following this Kent and Jade proved just how worryingly easy it is to get lost in the jungle. Well trained for this situation we put up a basha, collected some firewood, blew our whistles and crossed our fingers. A short time later Colin came marching back through the jungle, not entirely happy that we had managed to be the first people to get lost while in the jungle with him in ten years. Once we had reached camp that afternoon we had a play in the river and practiced some rope river crossings. Everyone rose to the challenge of trying to wade across a fairly strong current to get the rope over, which gave us plenty of opportunity to practice rescues with the throw rope. Once the rope was across we decided to practice a method of crossing where Colin was on one bank holding the rope and Kent and the other lads were on the other bank with the other end. The theory is that the person crossing uses the rope as support, if they fall a signal is given and one end is released allowing the other end to bring the person to the bank. So, Jade volunteered to go first, got half way and lost her footing in the current. Colin signalled that he would let go of his end, Kent misinterprets this and lets go of his end resulting in Jade getting washed off downstream (optimistically still holding on to the rope). A Bay Watch style rescue was launched with the four lads running in sequence down the bank watched over by Colin and a very bemused ranger (Kent maintaining his style despite stacking it on a rock half way). Everyone eventually reaches the bank in fits of laughter ready to try again.
On returning to Ya'axche the TELs and Trekkers celebrate a well deserved night off with a BBQ, yummy salads and plenty of rum punch. Over the following few days we helped out in the local villages with some litter picking before heading back to field base at San Ignacio. Back at base the TELs spent some time giving the rations a much needed re-vamp for our Jungle Navigation week. We managed to break away from the usual crackers and salsa for lunch and rice and beans for dinner and treated ourselves to curry, couscous and tagliatelle. Our ever patient guide Antonio also taught us how to make tortillas. We headed back to the jungle at Eligio Panti with Antonio to spend a week learning how to not get lost in the jungle. We swore and macheted our way through vines and the aptly named Bastard trees in our attempts to navigate 50m squares. In stealth ninja mode we followed increasingly difficult trails marked by Colin and Antonio and then competed to make and mark the best trails ourselves using upturned leaves and cuts in trees. The final challenge was our assessment where we had to individually navigate and mark a 200m square. Several hours later we all arrived back within a reasonable distance of our start point, knackered, pretty satisfied and ready for a beer or two. Back in San Ignacio we caught up with the Trekkers who seemed to have been partying due to working hard all week the highlight being Oz's leaving party where everyone made sure he had a good send off. We all headed out for Lucy's last night before the TELs set off to go on patrol at Bladen.
